Special Ops: Four Accounts of the Military's Elite Forces

by Orr Kelly

  Just as they broke contact, the first of the haversacks went off. But instead of making one big bang, they exploded at irregular intervals of two to ten minutes apart. The result was to give the defenders a solid half hour of excitement. The explosions on the beach seemed to mean only one thing: the demolition of beach defenses in preparation for a landing. As the Iraqis looked out to sea, they could make out two rows of buoys placed by the frogmen, seeming to mark the invasion corridor.

  Hovering seven miles offshore and storing their gear, the SEALs heard the charges go off and knew they had done their job well. What they didn’t know was whether it had made any difference in the conduct of the war.

  As the echo of the last explosions died away, the patrol boats sped south. When the docked at Ras al-Mishab, other SEALs excitedly gathered around and asked how it had gone. Deitz gave them an honest answer: “It was kind of boring.”

  Later that morning, with the ground operation underway, Chief Warrant Officer Roger Hayden, tactical operations command watch officer, received a message for Deitz from Smith:

  Tom: Please pass to your men an “extremely well done” on last night’s mission. CENTCOM has passed to us that elements of two Iraqi divisions reacted and moved, based on your operation. That reaction was exactly the objective we had hoped for. Keep up the great work. Commodore sends.

  “It really didn’t hit home, until we got that message, that it worked,” Deitz says. As the marines knifed northward through the Iraqi defenses that morning, there was no doubt that the SEALs—just six of them—had made a difference in the conduct of the war by suckering the Iraqis out of position.

  Later, after the SEALs had docked at Kuwait City with elements of the Kuwaiti navy they had helped to train, Deitz and Hayden visited the site of the deception operation. They found the shoreline heavily mined and scarred by trenches and fighting pits. If the marines had gone ashore there, they would have had a rude welcome. But then they probably would have moved quickly inland.

  “There was just one line of defense,” Hayden says in amazement. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  While most of their operations focused on their traditional maritime role, the Persian Gulf War also gave the SEALs a chance to try out one of their newest pieces of equipment, the fast-attack vehicle, or FAV.

  Originally developed by the army as a weapon for its light infantry in the early 1980s, the FAV is a military version of the off-road vehicles used by thrill-seekers in the western deserts. The version used by the SEALs carries a crew of three men. A driver and navigator-gunner sit side by side in two bucket seats. Mounted above the engine on the right side is a .30-cal. M-60 machine gun. The third man rides in a swivel seat above and behind the driver’s compartment. He is armed with both an M-60 aimed toward the rear and a .50-cal. machine gun on a swivel covering the area to the front and sides of the vehicle.

  The FAV crews found that night-vision goggles, the powerful Volkswagen engine, and large shock absorbers permitted them to sweep across the trackless Saudi desert at night at speeds of more than sixty miles an hour. They made nightly patrols along the Saudi-Kuwait border, prepared to dash in and rescue downed pilots. Beside the navigator-gunner is a large meshwork basket designed to cradle an injured pilot as the FAV streaks toward safety. The vehicle provides no armor protection for the crew or a rescued pilot. They rely instead on their three weapons to suppress enemy fire and their high speed and maneuverability to get out of harm’s way.

  During the war almost all the allied pilots returned safely from their missions, so the SEALs did not have an opportunity to carry out a rescue on the ground. They did, however, provide security as the United States reoccupied its embassy in Kuwait City.

  One disappointment for the SEALs was the very limited use of SEAL delivery vehicles. The SDVs would have been perfectly suited for surveillance of the Kuwait shore and, especially, the harbor at Kuwait City. But even though Smith was a former commander of an SDV team and familiar with the use of the little submersibles, they were not used in the Gulf until January, only a short time before the allied offensive began—and soon ended. Although all SDV operations remain highly classified, the SEALs, who train to operate the delivery vehicles from submarines, reportedly had difficulty figuring out how to use them effectively in waters so shallow that it was difficult for large submarines to operate.

  Smith and his task group returned to Coronado on 11 March 1991. During their seven months in the war zone they had achieved one of Smith’s most important, but unwritten, goals. He brought all the members of his task group home safely, without a single casualty. The returning SEALs also brought home positive answers to many questions about the ability of the SEALs to work effectively with other forces in a major conventional conflict and, despite their small numbers, to make a meaningful difference on the battlefield.

  The most important lesson of the war for the SEALs, Smith says, is that they proved they can “fit into a major force fighting a major war.” But they also learned, he said, that they can be most useful if they concentrate on the things they do well, and “stay within the bounds of our capabilities.”

  Since his return from the Gulf, Smith has been chosen for appointment as a rear admiral. This places him in a key position to draw on the lessons he learned as commander of the task group in Desert Shield to shape future development of the SEALs.

  In the past, however, the SEALs have not been very good at learning from their experiences, especially when things went wrong, and applying those lessons to plans for the future. The failure of UDT Sixteen during World War II at Okinawa is never spoken of. Neither is the SDV operation in 1972 in which Spence Dry lost his life. The SEALs took part in Urgent Fury in Grenada in 1983, but it was not until 1989, six years later, that three officers who served in that operation met with SEALs, other than their colleagues in Team Six, and shared their experiences. A meeting devoted to the SEAL participation in Just Cause, the invasion of Panama, was held shortly after the operation. But most of the SEALs present found the briefing unsatisfactory, and a few were so disturbed that they walked out.

  Many of the lessons the veterans of Desert Storm have to pass along involve the fine-tuning of tactics, techniques, and equipment that all worked pretty well. Still to be answered are the broader, more doctrinal questions about the place of the SEALs in the future, in both war and peace, and there is reason for concern that these issues are not being adequately faced.

  A number of the most experienced SEALs, including several whom their colleagues had looked to as future leaders, have recently retired. While each had his own reasons, ranging from a desire to spend more time at home to plans for a second career, many were also motivated at least in part by a feeling that the SEAL community was drifting, without a clear vision of its future.

  One particularly pointed question from the Gulf War was raised by the performance of the Tomahawk cruise missiles and the smart bombs dropped by the F-117 Stealth fighter-bomber and other planes. If a ship or submarine, firing from hundreds of miles away, can send a Tomahawk through the door of a power plant or a bunker, why should SEALs risk their lives to penetrate enemy territory to attack such targets?

  The experience of Desert Storm undoubtedly demonstrated that there are occasions when the new weapons are a better, less risky way to knock out key enemy targets. But the SEALs are convinced that the same skills that permit them to attack such targets can still be highly useful.

  The SEALs are a perfect choice if the United States wants to neutralize something, or send a message, without acknowledging U.S. responsibility, says Capt. Thomas N. Lawson, deputy commander of the Naval Special Warfare Command.

  “Let’s say, before the shooting in Iraq, if the Iraqis had a ship in port and we made the ship sink. The Iraqis would say, ‘I can’t prove it was the U.S., but I know it was the U.S., and they’re sending me a signal. This is an indication of things to come. How bad do I want to stay down here on the Saudi border?’ For that kind of thing, we pro
vide an option,” Lawson says.

  The SEALs also have the capability to send a message by causing only limited damage. A missile can be very precise, but it is also very destructive. As another option, a couple of pounds of C-4, slipped into place by a SEAL, are enough to bend the shaft of a ship and prevent it from moving without sinking or destroying the vessel. The message may be more subtle, but it is just as clear.

  Lawson also sees a significant shift in emphasis as a result of the change in relations with the Soviet Union. In the past, the SEALs focused much of their attention on direct action, such as blowing up a bridge or a power station, and on strategic reconnaissance, both related to a major superpower conflict. Now the spotlight is swinging more toward foreign internal defense—helping other nations to deal with internal problems, both military and social. A few SEALs, sent in to help in training, bridge-building, or medical service, may often be more acceptable to a foreign country than a carrier offshore or a larger military contingent.

  A major shortcoming of the Special Operations Command as a whole that was exposed by the Gulf War was the shortage of soldiers and sailors who could speak the languages of the region. Language training will receive more emphasis in the future, but a force as small as the SEALs will always have difficulty training enough men to speak the right languages for any future emergency.

  The leaders of naval special warfare will have to walk a narrow line between training the SEALs to speak other languages and help people of other countries—the hearts-and-minds kind of thing—and still making sure that they keep their sharp edge as the world’s best fighting men. Traditionally, the SEALs have focused primarily on their ability to influence events by violence in contrast to the army’s Special Forces, with their stress on working with foreign nationals.

  One form of violence that SEALs talk about among themselves is the possibility of capturing or killing terrorist leaders or even foreign heads of state. One of the frustrations of their involvement in Desert Shield and Desert Storm was that Saddam Hussein remained off-limits. Attempting to take out Hussein would have been an assignment tailor-made for the specially trained antiterrorist experts of SEAL Team Six. In fact, one former member of the team, while at the Naval Postgraduate School, wrote a study of how the team might be used to carry out clandestine assassination attempts. His thesis remains highly classified.

  U.S. policy, set by the White House, forbids assassinations. A number of officials of both the Reagan and Bush administrations have argued unsuccessfully that that policy be changed so that leaders of terrorist groups could be targeted. If the policy is ever changed, the SEALs might well be called upon to carry out such operations. They might also be used, in international waters, to capture persons wanted for violations of U.S. laws. The United States has, on several occasions, seized persons wanted for such crimes as terrorism, murder, and dealing in drugs, either in foreign countries or on the high seas, so there is a precedent for such operations.

  Another serious question raised by Desert Storm is whether SEALs will be needed in the future to mark targets for the bombers or assess bomb damage. The current assumption is that they may well be called upon to carry out such operations in future conflicts. This would be especially true in circumstances where the United States does not have supremacy in the air, as it had over Kuwait and Iraq. In such a case, sending in SEALs to mark targets and check on bomb damage might be the best, or perhaps the only, way to carry out offensive air operations without unacceptable losses of planes and pilots.

  Even though operations in the Gulf War were limited to squad or platoon size, debate continues over whether the SEALs should plan for more multiplatoon operations, such as the one at Paitilla, or whether they should concentrate on platoon- or squad-size operations. There are a number of reasons to think that, even if multiplatoon operations are not ruled out, they will be rare events.

  SEALs, particularly on the East Coast, who have had experience with the larger assault forces of SEAL Team Six, still argue that there is a place for multiplatoon operations. But there is a growing realization that SEAL Team Six can safely conduct such operations because its hostage-rescue assaults would almost always be carried out in circumstances where the area surrounding the building or aircraft where the hostages are held captive would be firmly in friendly control. Operating in circumstances where the enemy controls the area, a multiplatoon SEAL unit might, as in Paitilla, be both too large for surprise and too small to dominate the situation.

  Although top SEAL leaders defend the multiplatoon Paitilla operation as a proper one and say that, given time to plan and train, they might carry out such relatively large-scale tactics in the future, most SEALs consider Paitilla flawed, an unfortunate aberration from the kinds of things SEALs should do rather than a portent of things to come.

  Even if the SEALs should decide that there is a place in their repertoire for larger-scale operations, the number of men they can put into action in the future will be limited in many circumstances by decisions that have already been made on important pieces of equipment.

  Just coming into use is a new vessel, a 170-foot PC (patrol ship, coastal) so large that it carries a crew of twenty-eight and is a commissioned navy ship, unlike the smaller boats that have long been a familiar part of SEAL life. Despite its size, the new vessel was designed to carry only a single eight-man squad and two Zodiac boats, limiting the size of unit the SEALs can send on an operation.

  The new PC is one of the mixed blessings of the incorporation of the SEALs into the Special Operations Command. On the positive side, they are getting a new vessel, something that might not have happened if they had not had access to the relatively deep pockets of the joint command. The ship has a range of two thousand nautical miles and a speed of thirty-five knots, and it will be more seaworthy and much more comfortable than the little boats in which SEALs are used to being battered about.

  It is not, however, the vessel the SEALs would have chosen if they had had a free choice. When commanders of the SEAL teams and special boat squadrons saw plans for the PC, they complained that it was too big, too heavy, too slow, and improperly armed. They would have been happier with a modified version of the 110-foot Island-class Coast Guard cutter. But the Pentagon’s Southern Command, which can be called upon to patrol along the lengthy coasts of Central and South America, wanted a vessel with a good, long range, big enough to travel comfortably over long distances. The result was a compromise: a ship big enough to patrol Latin America, but also capable of carrying SEALs. Thirteen of the nine-million-dollar ships have been ordered for use by naval special warfare forces.

  Although the experience in the Gulf demonstrated once again that the older boats available to the SEALs are inadequate in their original design and tired from years of use, it will be several years, at best, before new boats, smaller than the coastal patrol ship, are available.

  The size of future SEAL operations will also be limited by the size of the ASDS (advanced SEAL delivery system) and the submarines from which it will operate. The ASDS, which has been under consideration since the early 1980s and will not come into service until later in this decade, will be a small submarine in which the crew members will be protected from the cold and darkness of the sea. But it, too, will carry only a single squad of eight men.

  The ASDS is being designed to operate from the deck of a modified Sturgeon-class attack submarine. The hope is to make relatively minor modifications to the sub so the ASDS can take off from the submarine and then return and lock onto the sub. Theoretically, this will make it possible to eliminate the dry-deck shelters required by the “wet” submersibles now in use. But that may not prove to be an advantage, because the navy also intends to continue to use the older SDVs, and they need a shelter from which to operate.

  Theoretically, the SEAL force could be expanded beyond a squad by sending more than one submarine on a mission or taking along other SEALs who would lock out and swim or ride their Zodiac boats to the target. Practically, that is u
nlikely to happen because the Sturgeon-class subs are too small to carry a large number of frogmen and, in the near future at least, there will be only two subs, one on each coast.

  While the SEALs have debated among themselves whether multiplatoon operations are too big, little thought seems to have been given to the question at the other end of the scale: Is a single squad operation too small? If an eight-man squad suffers even a single casualty, the need to care for an injured man or retrieve the body of one who is killed drastically reduces the unit’s ability to carry out its mission. In Vietnam, the SEALs often felt most comfortable operating in squad-size or smaller units. But they could almost always call in artillery fire and helicopters to pluck them to safety if they got in trouble. In the future, there may be many circumstances where SEALs will be completely on their own, with no hope of help or rescue.

  In the case of both the new patrol ship and the ASDS—Sturgeon-class submarine combination, with their one-squad limit, decisions about the future of the SEALs seem to have been made without a great deal of long-range planning about the circumstances in which SEALs might be called on to fight. And to some extent, these decisions have been shaped by forces outside the small naval special warfare community.

  Officers at the NSW headquarters in Coronado insist that, once they have their new equipment, the SEALs will make good use of it, and that is certainly true. The SEALs have made a habit, almost a virtue, of making do with what they have, innovating whenever necessary, and getting the job done against all odds.

  The very adaptability of the SEALs is one of the reasons they have been spared, so far, from the budget-cutting afflicting most of the rest of the military. With all the uncertainty about the future of the U.S. military, there seems to be a feeling in the Pentagon and in Congress that the SEALs will remain a good investment. Even with a force larger than ever in the past, and with relatively expensive new ships and minisubs in its future, naval special warfare consumes less than half a billion dollars a year, a fraction of one percent of the Pentagon budget and half the cost of a single new destroyer. Most of the NSW budget goes to pay the SEALs and the two-thousand-odd men and women in the support forces.